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Article 48 (Weimar Constitution)
Article 48 of the constitutionText of Constitution of the Weimar Republic of Germany (1919–1933) allowed the President, under certain circumstances, to take "emergency measures" (including the promulgation of legislative decreesThe Article does not expressly give the President the power to enact, issue or otherwise promulgate legislation. However, such an inherent Presidential legislative power is fairly to be implied, since the Article expressly gives the Reichstag the power to cancel the emergency decree by a simple majority vote; and this parliamentary power implies, in turn, that the issuance of the decree could, by its express terms or its operation, impinge on the Reichstag's constitutional function (i.e. the enactment of legislation). See, e.g., ) without the prior consent of the Reichstag (German parliament).Although Article 48, by its own specific terms, did require the President to inform the Reichstag "immediately" of the issuance of the emergency decree, and it furthermore permitted the Reichstag, by simple majority action, to nullify the emergency decree. The upper house of the legislature (the Reichsrat) was not involved in this process at all. See paragraph 3 of Article 48 (above). See also Legislation promulgated under this article of the constitution was referred to as Notverordnung (emergency decree). Article 48 was used by President Paul von Hindenburg in 1930 to deal with the economic crisis of the time. In 1933, he appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor, allowing him to establish a dictatorship. This effectively ended the Weimar Republic and ushered in the Third Reich. Origins and operation of Article 48 The drafters of the Constitution likely intended Article 48 to be used for "emergencies" or in case the President feared upheaval similar to the civil unrest that plagued Germany in 1918 and 1919. However, the text of the Article did not precisely define the kind of "emergency" that would justify its usage and the Republic's first President, Friedrich EbertEbert was a Social Democrat., frequently used Article 48 in lieu of resorting to parliamentary action.Ibid. In addition to the questions of federal control raised earlier, Ebert also used the Article to cope with the "financial emergencies" that arose from the astronomical inflation to which Germany was subjected in 1923-24 (Mommsen notes (p. 137) that Ebert had granted Cuno considerable latitude under Article 48 to deal with the inflation and matters related to the mark; it is questionable whether the drafters of the Article intended for this kind of "emergency" to qualify as one which would support an invocation of Article 48. As the German economic situation began to deteriorate after the outbreak of the Great Depression in early 1930, successive governments found it impossible to achieve a parliamentary majority for any policy, whether proposed by the left, center, or right. During spring and summer 1930, Chancellor Heinrich BrüningHe was appointed Chancellor on 30 March 1930 after considerable political intrigue found his government unable to obtain a parliamentary majority for its financial reform bill, which was voted down by the Reichstag.On 16 July the Chancellor presented his wide ranging financial bill to the Reichstag; it sought, among other things, the reform of government finances through both higher taxes and decreases in government spending (an obviously deflationary policy). The government bill was rejected by the Reichstag, by a vote of 256 to 193. The government, however, did not seriously try to negotiate with the Parliament to find a modus vivendi. Instead, Brüning asked President Paul von Hindenburg to invoke Article 48 in order to promulgate the bill as an emergency decree and thereby give Brüning's government the authority to act without the consent of the Reichstag.This was, in fact, the first time that a bill which had been legislatively rejected was later promulgated by way of executive decree, and the constitutionality of such "second bite at the apple" tactics has been questioned. Kershaw, pp. 320-325. When von Hindenburg gave his authority and issued the decree, the Reichstag repudiated the decree by a slight majorityThe Social Democrats cooperated with the Nazis to reject the decree, as did Alfred Hugenberg's Nationalists and the Communists. See Maehl, The German Socialist Party, p. 168. The decree was voted down, by a vote of 236 to 221. on July 18, 1930. Under Article 48, this vote by a majority of the Reichstag invalidated the presidential decree. Faced with a breakdown of parliamentary rule at a time when the economic situation demanded action, Brüning asked von Hindenburg to dissolve parliament and call for new elections. The Reichstag was accordingly dissolved on 18 July and new elections were scheduled for 14 September 1930.Under the constitution, new elections had to be held within 60 days of the dissolutionHistorians have not been kind to Bruning. According to Maehl, the Chancellor "foolishly" (Maehl, p 168) dissolved the Reichstag as a result of the financial imbroglio, p. 168. The decision to dissolve parliament was, in Kershaw's phrase, one of "breathtaking irresponsibility." Bruning had stunningly misjudged the discontent and anger within the country. It is difficult to avoid the conclusions that (a) the democratic processes -- namely, parliamentary negotation to achieve a working majority, either on a single piece of legislation or on a legislative program-- were just too difficult for this cast of characters and (b) the parties were too parochial and self-interested to cooperate in the greater intersts of the whole. pp. 324-25. Kershaw, Vol 1: Hubris. 73-75, 167 Collier. Collier maintains that this single act -- the dissolution in the face of a legitimate exercise by the Parliamentary body of its constitutional authority --was one of them most crucial steps in the Nazi rise to power, as it demonstrated the contempt with which the President and his advisers held the concept of democracy and the function of the Reichstag. "It ...marks the shift from parliamentary ... to presidential government....which gave the Nazis a 'legal' route to success that Hitler so needed." p. 167, Collier and Pedley. The election produced increased representation in the Reichstag for both the Communists and, most dramatically, for the Nazis, at the expense of the moderate middle-class parties.See Election Results. The Nazis increased their seats from a pitiful 12 to a respectable 107, out of a total of 577, becoming the second largest party in the Reichstag as a result; only the Social Democrats were larger at 143 seats. Forming a parliamentary majority became even more difficult for Brüning, and his government ruled repeatedly by invoking Article 48 between 1930 and 1932. Subsequent governments under chancellors Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher during the tumultuous year 1932 obtained President von Hindenburg's decree of legislation under Article 48 when they too found it impossible to obtain a parliamentary majority as the extremist parties on the Left and Right gained power. The invocation of Article 48 by successive governments helped seal the fate of the Weimar Republic. While Brüning's first invocation of Notverordnung may have been well-intentioned, the power to rule by decree became increasingly used not in response to a specific emergency but as a substitute for parliamentary leadership. The excessive use of the decree power and the fact that successive chancellors were no longer responsible to the Reichstag likely played a significant part in the loss of public confidence in constitutional democracy, in turn leading to the rise of the extremist parties. Nazi use of Article 48 On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany. Lacking a majority in the Reichstag, Hitler formed a coalition government and, not long afterwards called elections for March 5. Six days before the election, on February 27, the Reichstag Fire damaged the house of Parliament in Berlin. Claiming that the fire was the first step in a Communist revolution, the Nazis used the fire as a pretext to get President von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, officially the Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat (Presidential Decree for the Protection of People and State). Under the decree, issued by von Hindenburg on the basis of Article 48, the government was given authority to curtail constitutional rights including free expression of opinion, freedom of the press, rights of assembly, and the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications. Constitutional restrictions on searches and confiscation of property were likewise suspended. The Reichstag Fire Decree was one of the first steps the Nazis took toward the establishment of a single-party dictatorship in Germany. With several key government posts in the hands of Nazis and with the constitutional protections on civil liberties suspended by the decree, the Nazis were able to use police power to suppress, intimidate, and arrest their opposition, in particular the Communists. Hitler's subversion of the Constitution under Article 48 thus had the mark of legality. Though the March 5 elections did not bring the Nazis their much-desired majority in the Reichstag, the Nazis were able to maneuver on March 23, 1933 the passage of the Enabling Act by the required two-thirds parliamentary majority, effectively abrogating the authority of the Reichstag and placing its authority in the hands of the Cabinet. The Reichstag Fire Decree was the basis of later decrees that abolished the political parties other than the Nazi Party and strengthened Hitler's dictatorial power. Text of Article 48 Footnotes See also * Machtergreifung * Reichstag Fire Decree * Enabling Act of 1933 External links *Selected articles of Weimar constitution Category:Emergency laws Category:German law Category:Nazi Germany Category:Weimar Republic de:Notverordnung sr:Члан 48 (Вајмарски устав)